Person of the book

Gary Shteyngart talks about the clash of civilizations between lovers of literature and technology, as explored in his dystopian novel ‘Super Sad True Love Story.’

By JORDANA HORN

September 8, 2010 12:04

Gary Shteyngart 58.
(photo credit: Courtesy)

Gary Shteyngart is well known for his hilarious takes on the the world of the
Russian émigré. But his new book, Super Sad True Love Story, is a maelstrom of
satire, fear, humor and love that takes on America itself as its subject, and
does so brilliantly.

His immigrant past (Shteyngart was born in 1972 in
then-Leningrad, migrating to the US with his parents seven years later) was the
foundation for his first two novels, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and
Absurdistan. Both reveled in the inherent cognitive dissonance of the immigrant
experience, and met with ample critical acclaim. Shteyngart’s writing generally
favors wit and satire (a dominatrix named Challah?) over poignant reminiscences
about the old country. In Absurdistan, he turned his razor-sharp wit on himself,
referencing a book with the title The Russian Arriviste’s Handjob written by
Jerry Shteynfarb. In short, nothing is sacred.

“There’s only so much you
can write about certain things that are very important to you when you’re
growing up, the first being your identity,” Shteyngart says to me in an
interview. “I don’t think I’ve completely finished that task, but I did
it in the first book, and the second book was in many ways an extension of that,
though with a different perspective.”While he’s not planning to
completely abandon his Russian Jewish themes, Shteyngart says he’d like to “play
a little, and dance around it. America really is the topic with this
book, and the love between two people.”

On one level, Super Sad True Love
Story can described as an immigrant’s story. This time, though, the outsider
(while still Russian-American- Jewish) is from another value
system. Lenny Abramov, the protagonist, journeys both into a dystopia and
a love affair. Lenny lives in the not-too-distant future. It’s a horrid
place, where everyone carries around an äppärät – a sort of cracked-out iPhone
that reveals your desirability compared to the people around you in language
inappropriate for a family newspaper. It’s a world where Credit Poles
reflect people’s credit ratings as they walk by, signaling retailers as to who
is the best prey.

And it’s a world where literature as we know it is
extinct. Without the capability of expression that a love of literature confers
upon its adherents, love itself doesn’t stand too much of a chance, as evidenced
by Lenny’s desperate attempts to “connect” with and love Eunice Park, a
beautiful Korean twentysomething who is the object of his
affection.

“Love is an expression of so many different things,”
Shteyngart says. “It’s physical and intellectual, but so much also depends on
language and how we talk to each other. We are presenting little advertisements
for yourself, especially among a certain caste of people. That used to be a huge
theme of novels: How do people fall in love? Love and death are the two great
themes of literature. The question the book posits is: How will that work out if
language is demoted and there’s an abbreviation patois being used? What will
happen?”

He admits that he gave himself an edge in the book – Eunice is
extremely articulate, her indulgence in abbreviation patois
notwithstanding. But the book at its heart is a romp through a clash of
civilizations: the lovers of literature versus technology. Can’t we all just get
along?

“Who knows?” Shteyngart says. “Who the hell knows what the future is
going to hold? And the future is now happening at an exponential pace.
Technology used to advance very slowly – a horse was still a horse. These days,
tech has overwhelmed every other sphere – social, economic and
religion.”

In one throwaway sentence in Super Sad True Love Story,
Shteyngart writes of Lenny that he has “the Jewish affliction with words.” And,
in a way, it encapsulates Shteyngart’s entire ethos.

“Words aren’t a
disease as far as I’m concerned – they’re my livelihood!” Shteyngart
laughs. “But I can’t help but think that if something isn’t mediated
through language, it’s sort of second class. That whole ‘people of the book’
cliché comes to mind. As a Jew, you’re always going to have
readers.”

Shteyngart characterizes himself in our interview as “not a
religious person at all,” but I counter that, in fact, he is – it’s just that
his religion, like Lenny’s, is literature itself.

He thinks it over. “I
do think it’s a kind of religion,” he admits. “What’s interesting in
reading a
book is how upset people can get, how emotionally involved – when people
read my
books, you come into my mind, go through the halls of my mind. It’s
visceral,
and that’s exciting to me, that kind of connection.”

THE BOOK is
extremely funny as well as “super sad,” but at least part of its humor
and
tragedy stems from its characters’ dependence on their äppäräts, these
devices
which profess to help connect them with one another, but in fact cripple
their
ability to express themselves. Truthfully, this concept doesn’t seem
futuristic as much as it looks like an all-too-accurate and frightening
satire
of our Internet- and WiFi-addicted culture.

“When I was writing Absurdistan in 2001, tech was just part of the greater world – the world was still the world of human beings, nondigital,” Shteyngart recalls. “Things have changed so rapidly. We’re living in a whole different civilization.”

Anyone with a smartphone, or e-mail account, for that matter, can relate to Shteyngart’s simultaneous frustration with and titillation by the “ping” signaling the arrival of new communication, demanding, “Look at me!”

“It changes the way we interact,” Shteyngart says of his own iPhone. “It’s addictive. It’s addictive because wherever I go, it’s there, and it’s fighting for my attention, demanding things from me all the time. The information it provides me with constantly is not important enough to take the kind of time and enjoyment away from life itself that it does.”

Shteyngart notes that this hyper-technological world is critical to anyone in the creative industry, including authors: “It makes all of us small business people, constantly fighting for an advantage.”

For this particular book, Shteyngart had to dive headfirst into the culture, setting up iPhone apps, a Facebook page and doing a YouTube trailer for it.

But as we talk, Shteyngart’s depiction of his technological relationship has the vague bitterness of someone who decided to have an extramarital affair that went sour. “Remember when email was in its infancy, and every two or three days, something important would come through?” he asks rhetorically. “Now, what’s happening is that our brains are being taunted by tinier and tinier bits of information, little distractions that force us to respond constantly.”

“I don’t even know how to use all the apps,” Shteyngart admits. “It’s a little too much. There’s definitely resistance on my part, but [also] an acceptance that this is now the world I have to work in. But it’s hard! In researching this book, I’ve developed a little bit of a heroin-like iPhone addiction. I need to find ways to switch to methadone. That’s very hard.”

Shteyngart implicitly realizes that love for literature will trump technology, or at least wrestle with it and put up a hell of a fight; 140 characters, he says, is simply not enough.

“The long form is very important, both in fiction and nonfiction,” Shteyngart says. “It allows for something different to happen, and for the mind to go deeper into the world of ideas. I used to live on the Lower East Side, and passed men studying Talmud. I haven’t had a good experience with the Talmud myself, but I always did envy them the ability to completely sink into a text to the exclusion of everything else. It’s important.

“The problem is, that kind of attention is being taken away from us very, very quickly. As a writer, I rely on that ability, and it’s getting harder to find.”

Sites Of Interest

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